"Writing is a skill, not a talent, and thus one's ability as a writer can be improved by thoughtful effort. The problem with some people is that they graduate college as good writers, experience early success on account of that, and thus never devote themselves diligently to the relentless quest for improvement that could make them great writers."

Now, I am friends with some of the writers Greenwald names as contributors to The American Conservative, a publication to which I have twice contributed myself. I understand well what a world of evil is involved in the business of denouncing as anti-Semites all critics of Israel, all critics of U.S.-Israeli relations and all critics of U.S. Middle East policy. The world is more complex than that.

David Frum has recently expressed regret that he and others paid insufficient heed to Iraq war skeptics, but he's never apologized for his "Unpatriotic Conservatives" smear that impugned Bob Novak among others. Oh, that the Bush administration had included some of those "unpatriotic" voices, to counterbalance the "Cakewalk Ken" Adelmans!

Some would accuse Frum of having been biased on the issue of the Iraq war because he is Jewish and Saddam Hussein was hostile to Israel. Frum would naturally be expected to defend himself as having been concerned only with U.S. interests, and to argue that our alliance with Israel furthers U.S. interests. Many other Americans, Jew and Gentile alike, believe the same thing. The arguments for and against that position have been expounded at great length. That is not a debate I wish to revisit here and now.

What I do want to say is this: If Frum were pro-Israel purely because he himself is Jewish, such a sentiment would be entirely healthy, normal and defensible. I expect Sean Hannity to care more for Ireland than for Iceland, and I expect Barack Obama to care more for Kenya than for Cambodia. The Jew who is proudly Jewish, the Arab who is proudly Arab -- these are men I admire and understand, even if I wish their ancient quarrels didn't continually result in hatred, murder and wars that cause me to pay more for a gallon of gasoline.

By God, I remember when gas was 39 cents a gallon and I believe in my heart that if the descendants of Ishmael and the descendants of Isaac could live in peace, we would get back to 39 cents a gallon again. (Providing, of course, President Palin's first executive order in 2013 is to round up the environmentalist nitwits and ship them to Gitmo, where they belong.)

On the other hand, if some of the more atavistic descendants of Ishmael continue vowing to kill every Jew they can get their hands on, then it behooves every Jew with any sense of honor to respond: War to the knife, and knife to the hilt.

The effect of Greenwald's discourse is that Israel can undertake no meaningful action against her enemies without being condemned in similar terms. If it were within Greenwald's power to enforce his policy preferences, Hamas, Hezbollah, al-Qaeda and every other half-baked cabal of terrorist crackpots would be able to kill Jews with impunity.

The terrorists have no intent or purpose -- no political philosophy or policy aim -- that cannot be summed up in two words: Kill Jews.

If Glenn Greenwald can't see that, he's blind. And if he sees it, but would deny Israel the right to fight back against genocidal hatred, he's perverse.

But perhaps I've told you something you already knew.

UPDATE: Greenwald (who's obviously got Google alerts for all his sockpuppet pseudonyms) accuses me of "trite little condemnations so predictable and over-used that one almost falls asleep reading them," while mocking as "adolescent" Jeffrey Goldberg's response:

[H]e knows that I'm not a revanchist Zionist, but falsely accuses me of being one anyway. What a putz.

Does that make me a "revanchist Zionist" or what? Swear to God, if they ever want a Gentile prime minister, my first order would be to deploy the IDF in a north-south line, facing east. My second order would be "forward march" and the order to halt would not be given until it was time for the troops to rinse their bayonets in the Jordan. After a brief rest halt, the order "about face" would be given, and the next halt would be at the Mediterranean coast.

That's my "Middle East peace plan," and until it's carried out, there will be no peace.

UPDATE II: Excuse my extremism, but if you're going to conquer the land, by God, conquer the land. This was kind of the point of my citing Sherman in response to Greenwald during the Gaza war. The South, really, should be grateful that men like Grant and Sherman finally determined to win the war. Otherwise, the headlines would still be all about the latest "incident" in Nashville or the "uprising" in Charleston, with the United Nations dithering about whether to impose sanctions and crap like that.

While I'm opposed to federal tyranny -- and boreal supremacy -- you cannot end hostilities fighting by half-measures. A hard war brings a more durable peace. Notice that the Comanches haven't scalped any settlers lately?

UPDATE IV: Under Rule 2, I'm required to link Donald Douglas at American Power., who is the actual neocon chickenhawk Sully's readers think I am. In fact, I'm just nucking futz, but if you ever hear the Knesset debating whether a Gentile could be prime minister . . . Dude, it's only a hypothetical. Even Likud would never be that crazy.

UPDATE VI: As someone pointed out in the comments, I did not win the Malkin Award, but was merely nominated. True. You've got to admit, though, The Peace Through Total Annihilation Plan sets the bar pretty high. So I've ordered my gown from Bob Mackie and am practicing my acceptance speech ("I'd like to thank the Academy . . .") in anticipation of the star-studded gala.

UPDATE VII: Welcome Instapundit readers! What Professor Reynolds may not realize is that if they let me be prime minister, he'll be my defense minister. But first he's got to get himself one of those cool Moshe Dayan eye patches. Because chicks dig that. (And if anybody wants to hit the tip jar, be my guest!)

"But to denounce Israel as guilty of "terrorism" for responding forcefully to repeated rocket and mortar attacks..."

I don't follow your logic here. Why does the fact that Israel was responding to attacks make it impossible to accuse them of terrorism?

Terrorism is the use of force against innocent civilians in order to create feelings of terror in them, so that they influence their local politics to back down from any confrontation.

There seems to be no question that that is what the Israelis do, on a regular basis. Especially in this Gaza escapade. Over a thousand Palestinians killed, the majority being indisputably innocent civilians. How can you deny that that is meant to terrorize the population.

Almost all fighters, whether nation-states or "terrorist" groups, have lists of grievances - often long lists of things that are quite legitimate grievances - like the Israelis with those missiles, or the Palestinians with the issue of how the Israelis are continuing to steal their land.

Having a legitimate grievance is not a legitimate justification for terrorism. And that should apply to the Israelis as much as to the Palestinians.

And btw I find your title and the tone of your complaints about Greenwald to be really lame - rather transparant attempts at name-calling than make you look far worse than you make him look.

Your name-calling of Mr. Greenwald is about as immature as Mr. Goldberg's. We're all respectable bloggers, why don't we actually have a dialogue rather than point fingers? On a serious note, I believe that by dubbing Mr. Greenwald as anti-semitic, you not only embolden those who offer truly bigoted opinions (by the way, thy're not ALL terrorists) but also trivialize this entire debate.

I look forward to an attempt at a productive conversation about Mr. Greenwald's eye-opening piece in AmCon rather than the all-to-typical fear mongering and name-calling that adds toxicity not substance to said debate. By the way, how'd you get access to Mr. Greenwald's subconscious?

The first words out of your mouths is anti-semite , that's because you have no argument when Isreal is wrong. Why do you support Isreal more than the better intrest of the U.S. Wonder why the whole middle east hates the U.S. its because of our unfair treatment of the people involved

To align Greenwald with Pat Buchanan is the height of intellectual dishonesty, especially for a right-winger like yourself who has probably voted for Patty Boy more than a few times. The fact that you've thrown up straw men to describe Glenn is pretty indicative to me that you have nothing sustantive to add to this discussion but spitballs.

References to Native American groups that don't exist anymore, bayonets in the Jordan.

Isn't incitement to genocide a crime? Why not just call for the round up of all those dirty Arabs and dropping a nuclear weapon on them and get it over with? After all, if you are going to go to war, might as well go all the way! Amirite, Herr McCain?

Don't worry McCain, you're yet another chickenshithawk, like your more famous namesake, and the only reason you're getting any traffic at all from people who have a 3-digit IQ is because Sully called you out as a jackass of the Michelle Malkin variety.

As long as there are people like you, who believe that all it takes is military might to "solve" the problem, there probably won't be real peace. Advocating what amounts to genocide so openly - wow. Hitler sounded just like you before he came to power, you should study his speeches. Nothing like Endlösung talk to give oneself a rush of power and righteousness, hm?

Funny how no one complaining about your proposal mentions that the Jordanians did precisely this in September, 1970. I don't see the PLO, Fatah, or Hamas causing problems there or shooting rockets across the Jordan...and they make up about 30% of the population.

You really hit a nerve, and Icontributed my bit, you would never guess they're defending the people who blow themselves up on buses in Tel Aviv and Haifa, at Mike's Bar and Sbarro's in Jerusalem. Kin with the 9/11 hijackers, and 7/7 and 3/11train bombings. This is who they aredefending, by proxy with Glenn Greenwald

RSM, You are not wrong in your assesment of Mr. Greenwald. Nor are you wrong to defend Israel when they practically go out of their way to avoid civilian bystanders who are actually human shields that Hamas fighter will literally drag from playgrounds and houses just to be human shields that the terrorists can hide behind. Or, they'll just place children as close to High-Value Targets as possible so the children's bodies can than be paraded before the International Cameras/videocams and then loudly proclaimed that "Israel is Bombing CHildren [that We placed in Harms way so that we could acuse the Zionists]"

I looked closly at your head shot and as I suspected it's the beer-addled, sneering mug of every vile, bully-boy, Scottish blowhard in every low-rent slum-pub in every filthy, scabrous, forgotten town in the lowlands, and all your Colonel Blimp, By God, sir, posturing idiocy can't disguise the flop sweat of the failed,aging writer railing at his betters.

It's closing time and you're a cowardly, smirking, little never-was with glazed eyes, a bad haircut and empty pockets in a cheap suit. Pop along home now and beat the wife with your imaginary awards. That's the sort of fighting your bon vivant warrior lad likes, isn't it, old boy, by God?

Mr. McCain,The problem with your evocation of Sherman's ghost belies your misunderstanding of Sherman's folly. Sherman did not end the war, his actions changed the nature of the conflict between north and south and caused resentments to fester another hundred years.Every lynching victim throughout the following decades was a backlash against Sherman, and the "reconstruction" that followed on his heels. So, unless you really are advocating a "final solution" for all Arabs, you should control your flights of passion.

Don't worry McCain, you're yet another chickenshithawk, like your more famous namesake

is truly remarkable. I thought "chickenhawk", while always stupid, had jumped the shark once and for all when deployed against Charles Krauthammer. And of course bloggers such as the host here are used to it. But calling John McCain a "chickenhawk"?

My hat is off: this is the stupidest comment I have seen on the Internet in at least a month.

Every guy with a girl's name has to prove that he really is a man. Just once I'd like to see a guy named Stacy or Sue whose insecurity about his manhood wouldn't translate into adolescent political bravado.

It may be that the harshest tactics might produce "victory" but what are you left with in the end?

Sat Feb 21, 12:09:00 AM

It's called "peace and freedom".World War II, look it up..

What do those Hamas-loving fools think that their rat's nests will look like if they start lobbing Iranian gas shells into Southern Israel's schools?The IDF did those little pricks a favor by strongly slapping back. Yet, being merciful Jews, they held off more than 99% of what they could have done. If the idiots in Gaza don't learn, and start sending more deadly weaponry into the homes of Southern Israel, after the next war, Gaza City may be an ashtray.

Ah Stoogeboy, migrates here, after the closing of the Douthat comments section, and Yglesias took the Boeing. Really Patrick, you're going to tell me that all those lynching were in retaliation for Sherman, and not the fact that they regarded blacks as animals. That the butcherof Ft. Pillow, Nathan Bedford Forrestand his acolytes in the Klan were driven mad by the burning of Atlanta.

Congrats on crafting a post that guaranteed to get you way over the million mark. Hilarious to see all the comments on this post somehow treating it seriously. Brilliant usage of your own 5 points rule.

Your plan sucks, but I honestly can't say it sucks anymore than any other plan for Mideast peace. However since most critic of your plan don't seem to realize that the catch phase should be "It takes two, to negotiate, but only one to fight" I don't see much room for realistic debate of Israel policy options.

Your comments concerning current events and Isreal were spot on but really, "The butcher of Fort Pillow" comment shows an insipid and jouvenile understanding of American history. Read a book for goodness sakes.

A more fascist approach to the Middle East or indeed the planet as a whole is difficult to imagine. It reads as if the author believes men's only legitimate role in life is to fight each other for racial supremacy, resulting in a better planet without weaker races or those weaklings (like Greenwald, I assume) who get squeamish about killing children who don't share their own bloodline.

Greenwald would be justified in considering your frothing hatred of him to be evidence he's probably right.

Why isn't it a matter of simple decency that those who call for wars so enthusiastically actually volunteer for combat in them? But inevitably, the most fervant war mongers are the least likely to serve.

In 1983, the building I was in was blown up by people who thought they had the right to kill me because of their own idea of "political" justification. I didn't die but many innocent people did, including friends and colleagues. I am unwell to this day from the trauma.

When you casually talk about killing innocent people for a "rhetorical" political reason, you really have no idea of how much pain and anguish is behind your words and how low you are sinking. They may just be words or rhetoric to you but to those who have been through terrorism -- the smell of dead flesh and the horror of never seeing your family and your babies again rises in your throat like a kind of death.

Ask any Holocaust survivor how they feel when they hear Neo-Nazis talking and you will get an idea of how a terrorist victim feels when someone like you talks about terrorism to score "blogging" points." Germany did not outlaw "Nazi rhetoric" for nothing.

You need to understand that while I support your First Amendment right to print anything you want -- you are not morally excused for what you write.

The death you are calling down on an entire population to entertain in a blog is cruel and evil.

Greenwald is right of course. Even as we speak Israel is invading the West Bank, taking peoples homes and ruining the lives of those Palestinians who stay. Isreal is a great country and has very intlligent people but this course is just plain wrong. Hopefully, signs are all over the place though, the IDF officers who deounce this policy and the daughters of Massad chiefs standing up to say no to travesties in the WB.

Who would have though criticizing a Nazi and Salafi apologist, would bring such traffic. Or that Hamas had such a large fan club. That is who we're talking about, the people who vow to drive Israel into the sea, who bomb city buses, pizzerias and night club, kin to AQ. And the denial of Ft. Pillow, and NathanB. Forrest's role in it. No reference to Sharon, well he's out of the picture now, so Avigdor Lieberman will have to do

Wow, you stirred up one hell of a shitstorm! The libtard lemmings are out in force. That's when you know you won. Though, I can't say your opposition is that impressive. Greenwald is two breaths away from being a tinhat 9/11 Truther and Sully is just waiting for the next charismatic politician to emerge who sends a tingle up his arse! Then you have the various Obamabot intellectual lilliputians who are infesting your comment section spouting their typical blather, nonsense, logically-devoid platitudes stuffing their fat faces in a bowl of cheetos whilst masturbating over some hentai centerfold piece!

Dude, you're like the Yankees taking on the Mississippi School of the Blind!

Of course, the Jews and the Arabs are related, there Semites. I do know that nothing distresses me more than to see these two beautiful God-Graced cultures and peoples hurting each other. Can you imagine our Father in Heaven balling his eyes out? His children whom he made are fighting all the time. Please, please stop hurting each other.Lorenzo M. of California

Israel did not "respond" to attacks by Hamas.HAMAS actually responded to Israel's repeated violations of the truce established earlier in 2008. The rocket attacks (they are oh so sucessful, claiming less than 1 Israeli life for every 1000 Palestinians - is that your estimation of the worth of an Arab vs. that of a Israeli?), were commenced only AFTER Israel had made repeated incursions, and other seizures, etc in Gaza in that truce's violation.These ineffective rockets are the ONLY way Hamas has to respond.

All this was provoked by the powers that be in Israel, to allow them to finally unleash this long-planned campaign, in an ultra transparent effort to influence the voting of 2/2009, which worked rather well as we now see.

People like you or Goldberg always portray the Israeli's as merely reacting to intolerable provocations, thus of being the victim, when in fact much of the time that is simply not true.

Remember Lebanon in 2006? We now know, despite Israel's claims to the contratry, that the soldiers "kidnapped" which set off that war, were actually seized in Lebanon. Who provoked whom there?

Same goes to all the targeted leader killing that Israel undertakes. Those are not provocations, no. And even if they were, we are supposed to think that that is Ok, when it so flagrantly violates laws left and right.

So go ahead, and always see Israel as the victim. one that is incapable of doing anything wrong. That mode of thought is a major hindrance to any meaningful peace ever coming about in the Middle East.

"I don't think general usage would call the bombing of Dresden "Terrorism". "

That's only because the victor writes the history books and defines how things are to be perceived.

In fact, Harris had precisely terror in mind, when he unleashed these bombardments during WWII. And all you have to do is google bomb terror and WWII, to see that there is indeed such a usage for these bombings.

If people like you, do not want to associate bombings such as Dresden, or Hiroshima with terror, then not because they aren't terror, but only because you can not admit, that these bombings were wrong. Admitting that they were terroristic, and intended to be just that, would rip the self-justification off our own self-perception of these last 60 years.

Why were no German Generals etc tried for any bomb-terror campaings, that the Luftwaffe committed? Because to do so, would have too obviously opened up our own military leaders to like charges, and we knew it.

Minor quibble, but in your defense of ethnic cleansing, murder of children, and displacement of families (for the sake of Right and Good mind you!), you, as usual, got your history wrong again.

Bobby, Northern troops were stationed in the South for a decade after the end of the war to stop the "incidents" you theorize. Perhaps, you've heard of the Klan? Nathan Bedford Forest?

What stopped the incidents was giving the South back to the terrorists by ending Reconstruction. Thus, the revanchists were able to perfect the sharecropper system (and replicate the economic effect of slavery) and impose Jim Crow laws to replicate the political atmosphere.

Burning Atlanta didn't stop terrorism, leaving the south to the terrorists did.

So, after reading anything by Professor Eric Pfoner (or, hell, watching Gone with the Wind), would you like to remove the update or give Palestine back to the Palestinians?

Oh, by the way, are you Ratko Mladic? I was just noting the similarity in your philosophies regarding ethnic cleansing and remembering Radovan Karadzic's arrest and revelation he had a disguise and a webpage and...well, making an intuitive leap. You should turn yourself into authorities Ratko and end the wingnut welfare.

Because we all know how hell bent the south was on genocide toward the north. I remember reading in the history books of how all the heads of state were publicly crying out to push the north into the Atlantic Ocean.

Much the same way the leaders of Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and just about every other head of Islam state out there has said they want to drive Israel into the Mediterranean Sea.

Show me, Dave, where the King of Jordan or the "President" of Egypt has call for driving Israelis into the sea?

Both governments actually have peace treaties with Israel.

Oh, and if you want to argue the South's goals of keeping a race of people enslaved are so different than what Mr. McCain is advocating, take it up with him. He brought the non-analogous US Civil War into the discussion and then butchered the history of it. Not me.

I will note the castigating of "Arabs" and Palestinians for wanting to "kill all the Jews" is just achingly, wonderfully ironic, Dave, on a page where the author just admitted he would do the same to those Palestinians....

but, it's not a sin if Mr. McCain does it, eh? Because, he's on YOUR side.

For cons, morality is very much a two-sided coin. "Our ethnic cleansing is good, because we're good," says Dave, "but "they are evil for calling for ethnic cleansing!"

Hit the tip jar, you ungrateful bastards!

Understand Liberalism

"When R.S. McCain talks about gonzo journalism, he knows what he’s talking about."-- Chapomatic"You are reading Robert every day, aren’t you? If you aren’t, you’re missing out, folks. The guy brings the good stuff every day."-- Jimmie, The Sundries Shack

". . . the one-of-a-kind Robert Stacy McCain, whose blog should be on your must-read list, if it isn't already."-- Dyspeptic Mutterings

"The most enthusiastic blogger I have yet to meet."-- Pam Geller, Atlas Shrugs

"The guy has to be the hardest working dude in DC. I've yet to meet someone here he doesn't know."-- Dan Riehl, Riehl World View

"One of the most important conservative writers working today."--Donald Douglas"For what it's worth, the man can also hold his liquor better than most; that's probably how he gets his scoops."-- Little Miss Atilla